Did I not swear to
you that I would love you for ever and ever, and that you should be
my own? Did I not leave this house and go away,--till I could earn
for you one that should be fit for you,--because I loved you? Why
should I have broken my word? I do not believe that you thought
that it was broken.'
'By my God, that knows me, I did!' As she said this she burst into
tears and fell on her knees at his feet.
'Marie,' he said, 'Marie;--there is no use in this. Stand up.'
'Not till you tell me that you will forgive me. By the name of the
good Jesus, who knows all our hearts, I thought that you had
forgotten me. O George, if you could know all! If you could know
how I have loved you; how I have sorrowed from day to day because I
was forgotten! How I have struggled to bear it, telling myself that
you were away, with all the world to interest you, and not like me,
a poor girl in a village, with no thing to think of but my lover!
How I have striven to do my duty by my uncle, and have obeyed him,
because,--because,--because, there was nothing left.
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